More permanent Pacific workers in Australia better than aid

Transcript

JONATHAN PRYKE: The long term development prospects for many of the Pacific island countries, long term are pretty bleak. I mean the headwinds of small size, remoteness, as well as growing demographic and environmental pressures outweigh much of the good work the governments in these countries do. And our over one-billion-dollars of foreign aid we send each year can produce. So one idea that has been floated in a variety of forms that has the potential to have the most transformational impact is allowing a significant number of Pacific Islanders to come and work in Australia. This would help people in the Pacific to earn an income far above their potential at home and considerably improve their living standards. And also reduce those demographic pressures.

JAMIE TAHANA: And how exactly does this help and how much of an impact could it make?

JP: That is a great question so what we have done is we have modelled out over the next 25 years what the impact could be. So we take a point of 2040 to assess the impact of such a policy and then we estimate a range of scenarios in which a greater labour mobility would be enabled with the Pacific. So we assume that anywhere between one percent of the Pacific islands population to 20 percent would migrate over the next 25 years to Australia. Under that 20 percent scenario, where 20 percent of the Pacific islands population would move to Australia by 2040 the benefits are just profound. Just simply because of the improved earning potential of these individuals. The benefit that would go straight to individual incomes would be 40 times the value of what Australia currently gives in aid.

JT: And so what are the current barriers of entry for a Pacific islander to get into Australia.

JP: Well our current migration program is really completely oriented around skilled migration and just that high skill barrier really restricts a high migration intake from the Pacific island countries to come to Australia.

JT: Pacific island countries some have population pressures but many do speak of the fact that they are losing great numbers of their population to Australia, New Zealand and they are trying to entice these people to come back and so forth. Doesn't these go against what these countries are trying to do to reduce the out-migration?

JP: Well I think you are alluding to a lot of the countries that already have access to international markets particularly Samoa and Tonga. And whilst it is a significant consideration and risk that here could be adverse impacts to the ascending communities. We take the view that development is really about people and not place. And we are not dragging anyone out of their homes. What we are modelling is providing people an option to migrate to Australia to improve their standard of living to improve their income and earning potential.

JT: In Australia itself of course there is the whole domestic politics factor the trend recently has been against immigration especially unskilled immigration. How would you possible overcome this?

JP: Well that is a really good point. I mean you are right that the conversation around migration in Australia has become increasingly polarised. Particularly this year and there are many layers to that debate. But one element of the debate that we think really hasnt been properly identified and properly evaluated is just the development impact that a migration program can have on our near neighbours. Our numbers show just how profound an impact our migration policy can have on the region.